Themes: Family Gatherings, Golden Years, Life in the Arts
Main Cast: Louis Ducreux, Sabine Azéma, Michel Aumont, Genevieve Mnich, Monique Chaumette
Release Year: 1984
Country: FR
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
French stage actor Louis Ducreux makes his film debut as a 76-year-old traditionalist painter, Monsieur Ladmiral, in this bittersweet portrait of a brooding artist. A widower, Ladmiral lives on an estate in the countryside near Paris with only his housekeeper, Mercedes (Monique Chaumette), and his paintings to keep him company. The action of the film takes place on a bright autumn Sunday in the early 1900s when Ladmiral's son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and Gonzague's wife, Marie-Therèse (Geneviève Mnich), come out from Paris with their three children to visit the old man. While making small talk with Gonzague, Ladmiral hints ever so subtly that his son has become too bourgeois, too conformist, too accepting of the status quo. Apparently, Ladmiral doesn't want his son to face what he is facing: self-recrimination for failing to take risks, failing to go beyond the bounds of tradition. Outdoors, the couple's two boys are only too eager to risk and dare. At one moment, they try to set fire to an insect and, failing, have the audacity to ask for a magnifying glass to do the job. Their father, Gonzague, disapproves, of course, but Ladmiral pronounces his blessing on the project, and he authorizes them to use his glass. No doubt, the old man hopes they survive childhood with their gumption and gall intact -- like Irène. Irène is Ladmiral's other child -- a vivacious, free-spirited beauty who speaks her mind and follows her whims. She is everything that Gonzague is not. Later, she drives her Papa to a dancehall. There, he tells her about his ruminations -- that maybe he should have experimented with impressionism. After examining his current project, he considers whether to make a decision, one that may change nothing -- or perhaps everything. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
Review
This award-winning 1984 film poses questions asked by virtually every older person: If I could live my life over again, would I do anything different? Is it too late now to change? Monsieur Ladmiral, a widower, considers these questions on a quiet Sunday afternoon while his children and grandchildren visit him in the countryside near Paris. Portraying the 76-year-old Ladmiral is Louis Ducreux, a 73-year-old veteran of the French stage who never before acted in a film. Ducreux glazes his character with cheer and good humor while still revealing wistful melancholy and quiet desolation. Although always restrained, his emotions bridled, Ducreux uses subtle gestures and turns of conversation to expose Ladmiral's disdain for his son Gonzague's (Michel Aumont) complacent, middle-class lifestyle and his envy for his daughter Irène's (Sabine Azéma) risk-taking, topsy-turvy lifestyle. Ironically, the film itself is something of an impressionist work, perhaps after the manner of Renoir's painting A Day in the Country. Director Bertrand Tavernier lets the movie go where it wants to, when it wants to, without heed to traditional plot conventions. Like its central character, the film is always subtle, never obvious. There are no shouting matches -- à la On Golden Pond -- and no great moments of epiphany. After his children's visit, life goes on. And Monsieur Ladmiral returns to his studio, examines a painting he has been working on, and looks longingly out the window as the light of the setting sun begins to yield to the evening shadows. ~ Mike Cummings, All Movie Guide
